THE THEATR.E AR.MS AND THE WOMAN George Bernard Shaw on getting and spending. BY NANCY FR.ANKLIN T hat the world in which George Ber- nard Shaw wrote "Major Barbara," his 1905 theatrical examination of the social order, was a different one from the one we now live in can be gleaned from his preface to the pla "There are two measures just sprouting in the political soil, which may conceivably grow to something valuable," he wrote. "One is the institution of a Legal Minimum Wage. The other, Old Age Pensions." But the difference between Shaw's era and ours is not so much that a social safety net now exists where none did be- fore but that in his time there was urgent and regular debate about the very nature of the society that net was intended to underlie. Shaw goes on to propose a measure that is more than palliative: the institution of "Universal Pensions for Life," as a way of eradicating poverty- in other words, from each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The deafening winds of capitalism have by now, and possibly forever, drowned out this kind of radical debate about the way the world showd work, which makes the Roundabout's revival of "Major Bar- barà' perfectly timely: it is taking place in a theatre whose existence is to some ex- tent made possible by corporate dona- tions, in a city whose mayor admitted, after six years in office, to not having given much thought to the citizenry's health-insurance problems until he be- came ill himself, in a country whose President fought for a tax cut that will benefit largely the people who don't need it. (And it's a weird coincidence that the Salvation Army, which features promi- nently in the play; was in the news as this production was opening, for trying to obtain an exemption from state and local anti-discrimination laws.) The Irishman Shaw didn't have the English reserve when it came to talking about money; he knew that there was no point in talking about anything else unless you talked about money first. 82 THE NEW YORKER, JULY 30,2001 Being a showman as well as a pre- scriptive know-it-all, Shaw doesn't en- dorse socialism directly in "Major Bar- bara," which is running at the American Airlines Theatre, under the direction of Daniel Sullivan. But, in lively, cheeky fashion, he knocks over any number of sacred cows, the better to highlight the ideological contours of the landscape on which they are grazing. Andrew Under- shaft (David Warner), a rich munitions manufacturer, has been summoned by his wife, Lady Britomart (the wonder- fully funny Dana Ivey), to her house in London-they are separated-for a fam- ily conference. Their two daughters are engaged and need money from him, and there is the question of what to do with their son, Stephen (Zak Orth), a twenty- p. ... ...I .. ,.. .: . --.;.-..:.. I l' ,_' , , " 1 ," ';- L . .. "-',::,;' r,. I" -':= .. C.:, \ . _' .. . ..n-- ,," - :.;,. ::: I '. "",- ' , ' I ' ' " , -.- -. ..... .. . . ,....... . . ;r)!) :.. \", ; E; L four-year-old personification of upper- class righteous ineffectuality. It has been so many years since Undershaft has seen his children that he doesn't even recog- nize them, but he quickly warms up to his daughter Barbara (Cherry Jones), who is a soldier of God in the Salvation Army; even though their philosophies of life are in exact opposition, they share a good-humored vivacity and a belief that they're fighting the good fight, and each sees in the other a possible convert in the making. Barbara believes that "there are neither good men nor scoundrels: there are just children of one Father." Under- shaft, for his part, practices "the true faith f Ar " " . all o an morer: to gtve arms to men who offer an honest price for them, without respect of persons or principles." In their different ways, they both preach the gospel of equali In the crisis that is the climax of the play-when Undershaft, with a stroke of the pen across his checkbook, destroys Barbaràs faith in the purity of the Salva- tion Army-a lower-class lout named Bill Walker asks her tauntingly, "What price salvation now?" (Or, as Shaw has helpfully spelled it in the play, for the '1 . '.:." . " , '", , , \. \. " ., :' 'I,:, -'i:;,. \ ' , ' ">': ;, , rJ ("I;" , '",- " - , t , t '., "\ '\", .' 1."'- ir:J. #. ", , t , :\ 'Þ ......of,. " < '" ", '" .. The luminous Cherry Jones as a soul-saving soldier of God in ''Major Barbara. "